at uptown climbing with jun. it makes me feel weird sometimes. i think just the association of being watched by people/having had anxiety attacks before when i was not in a good place. finding apartments has been challenging. i have a good feeling about the one on belmont. but i don't know. hm. we'll see. aunty joyce i think prayed about God having set aside an apartment for us. that was comforting.
i think i'm happy? i just had that realisation a moment ago. it's not like i have not been, you just don't really think about that much, like kindof definitively ya know? i think i'm happy. Jun, hope and me sat on the balcony last night for dinner. it was beautiful, watching the light change as the sun set. i had whipped up two simple dishes with jun and hope's help from what jun had in the fridge and we talked over dinner and virgin mimosas. lol we only had sprite, no champagne. conversations lately have been geared towards the future mostly. what people our age are "doing" now i guess - varying from us (being in college), to those who are already working, making loads of money or having their own businesses, to those with kids and husbands. i thought, looking at the city before me, all the buildings - the offices, homes. lights flickered on and off as people left their offices for home, and arrived home from offices after a day's work. i thought about all the lives in those windows. the vastness of the sheer number of people living in the city before my eyes was kind of comforting. like i'm just one in the many you know? i turned back to face hope and jun. the conversation was about what we see ourselves "doing" i guess, and the frequent questions we get from friends and family,
so what are you really gonna do?
how is your degree going to practically contribute to your life?
how are you going to make money?
we laughed and joked, but also acknowledged the reality that those questions sometimes pose - like we have/should be out there finding jobs that pay. i think we each make art for different reasons, but we each feel the need to make, to create. for some of us, it's something we love and express ourselves through, others - a coping mechanism, a way to critique society, or some - we simply feel the need to make.
artists sometimes, more often than not, have to work twice as hard to get half as far, but far in which direction is what i have been wondering lately. where are we trying to go? what do practicality and success and happiness mean? doesnt it all differ from person to person? why does society feel the need to have set criteria that people tick off or feel the need to meet? i dont think there was really a conclusion to the conversation. i mean we each kind of had inklings of perhaps where our hearts are drawn to, with the considered realities of practicalities like cash and paying the bills, and i mean, we're just taking it day by day i guess. it's as if art school taught us both that hard work is key, but just when you almost let hard work consume you, you realise that that isn't all it is, and continually striving isn't the way to go, you get lost easily in the hustle. i mean that's why we are artists, no? there's always the thought/need to get into shows/galleries, to be known, to make social change, to make a difference, leave a mark. but also havent i always made work that notices the mundane, that pleads for our steps to slow down, our eyes to see, our ears to hear, our hearts to be softened to the everyday, to people we love, people we don't yet know, to remember we are human, and flawed and messy and kind of all over the place, but maybe that's beautiful? or maybe it's not beautiful but it is who we are? the lights from the ships on the horizon flickered apprehensively.
there and then though, it was enough for me to know that my heart was full. to be on the balcony with friends i love having dinner, with the city beneath us.
